


Within, Without

by Transistance



Series: Each Disquieting Instance [5]
Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Androids, Awkward Dates, Character Death, Grim Reapers, Mutilation, Nightmares, Other, Past Character Death, Revenge, Transhumanism, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-14
Updated: 2018-01-23
Packaged: 2019-03-04 13:09:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 19,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13365369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Transistance/pseuds/Transistance
Summary: William is dead. Grell is in containment, being monitored for signs of the infection which has killed Will and wiped out the entirety of the Ipswich dispatch alongside every other Collections supervisor in Britain. It is not long until she is allowed out - at which point she moves from victim to predator as she attempts to find the source of all this damage, and chase up another debt due to her too.





	1. Recap

**Author's Note:**

> Look! It's this series back finally! I'll post it every two days until it's up; hopefully worth the wait.
> 
> First chapter is a recap of the previous 80,000 words, so that you don't have to read them again if you don't want to. If you've a good memory, want to read the previous 4 fics or really don't care about context, feel free to go straight to the second.

**[Probation:](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3697178/chapters/8179595) **

Having been caught and convicted of breaking reaper law as Jack the Ripper, Grell is sentenced to spend a month in the department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Upon returning after that month she is been forced to remain in her butler guise, rendered colour-blind and unable to jump to the mortal world or access her scythe, and William attempts to understand how her attitude has become so despondent and broken after only one month. He receives letters from the head of the department, Andreas Sneddon, detailing how Grell should be treated (badly) until the final hearing, upon which the council will decide whether she is fit to return to reaping or not.  
After three weeks of this Grell has an emotional breakdown and William instructs her to recover at home. She does not show up to work the next day so he goes out to find her, and discovers that she has overslept and her form has reverted to its usual. As she changes herself back, slowly, she tells William about another woman who was in Corrections as punishment for smuggling reaper tech to humans. She tells him that the department cut out the woman's warp core – the organ that allows them to jump to the mortal realm – and then asks how he caught her after killing Madam Red. On their way back to the office once Grell has finished changing her form they run into Ronald, who asks if Grell will be allowed to attend the office New Year's party. The next day William receives word that he is to take the Noah's Arc Circus reaping alone on the day that Grell is reinstated to work, also reaping alone, and blames Sneddon, assuming an attempt to get Grell to snap. At the office party Grell is sober whilst William gets drunk, and he tells Grell about his suspicions regarding Sneddon, and then the two of them head home in time for William to catch a few hours' sleep before his month of fieldwork.

**[To What Do We Owe Life:](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4405589/chapters/10005044)**

When walking to work one day, Grell is approached by a half-familiar woman in possession of an android resembling William. The woman claims it was an experiment and that she made it look like William as a gift to Grell, and if she does not take it she will scrap it. Grell claims the android and finds it childlike and full of knowledge but lacking in worldly experience, so she tries to show it pieces of the world. Grell kisses him and then immediately regrets it, which confuses the android as it is programmed to make her happy.  
William visits her house to see why she is skipping work and not answering her phone but does not come in, and informs Grell that several cinematic records have been stolen from the library. He leaves and Grell doesn't ponder his words as the android has heard the conversation and become morose, recognising that he has been built to mimic William rather than exist as an entity of his own. He asks Grell to kill him, having surmised that he makes her sad rather than happy, and Grell calls Ronald over in an attempt to persuade the android not to kill itself. This proves ineffective and the two reapers take the android to the park to kill him as he has asked, and upon doing so find that he contains a cinematic record – potentially but not certainly one of the stolen ones. They decide that this must be reported and hand the android's body and record over to William to deal with. He shows Grell that the woman who gave her the android was operating under a false name and is not registered as working in London before sending Grell on her way.

**[Now and Then:](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5864599/chapters/13517128) **

Through a series of flashback nightmares, Grell's time in Corrections is covered; she was interrogated and smacked about by Sneddon, another reaper who can alter his form to create a disguise as Grell can, except that Sneddon is more experienced and can also change other people. Once talking proves ineffective he begins to change Grell's body, harmfully and invasively, in an effort to make her believe that she is a man rather than a woman due to the idea that her gender made her act out and become the Ripper. In the present, Grell has been reprimanded for the android incident for not informing Upper Management, but only punished with desk duty. William finds her sleeping at work due to the nightmares, and informs her that he hasn't heard anything further about the android and that they have a scheduled reap together.  
Grell tells him later that the nightmares are about her time in Corrections and William begins to wonder more about what the department did, and so visits them and requests Grell's file alongside that of the woman whose warp core was cut out. The secretary manning the front desk tells him that Sneddon is AWOL and that the department would _never_ do something as insidious as cut out a warp core, and the files are vague and unhelpful. After their reap together Grell invites William out for a drink, which he accepts on the basis that she will clear her paperwork. One drunk Grell reveals that she feels guilty for the death of the android and that Sneddon interrogated her whilst in William's form, and when he informs her that Sneddon is AWOL she spooks due to this meaning that he could be anywhere. William takes drunken offence to the insinuation that Sneddon poses a threat and promises to protect Grell from him. He then tells Grell that her feelings for him are unhealthy and she leaves, remarking that that doesn't matter.

**[What Happened That Day Whilst He Was Away:](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6053247/chapters/13877628)**

Grell is temporarily in charge of the department as William is away at a supervisor's meeting in Ipswich. Unfortunately William arrives back a day early, his appearance heralded by a scared junior who reports an approaching figure to Grell. She goes to investigate and discovers that it is a zombie, a reaper zombie, a Will zombie. She prepares to kill it, horrified that this has happened to William, when he speaks – broken voiced but still coherent enough to convince her of sentience. She takes him in and he reveals that the entirety of Ipswich's office has been destroyed and that every supervisor in Britain has been mutilated as he has.  
William can hear the beating hearts of the reapers around him, and resists the urge to attack them. The department of Special Affairs take him in for study, and the dispatch as a whole travel to Ipswich to capture the remaining zombies – of which there are scores – and catalogue the dead bodies that they find. The building is then razed to the ground and the zombies and corpses moved to London, where they are identified and contained for further study. Grell is allowed to visit William, and as he has retained sentience and not exhibited violent behaviour the head of Special Affairs – Helen Davies – allows Grell to take him home with her due to it being more humane, but warns her against becoming complacent. William argues that he can hurt Grell, but she laughs the worry away.  
As days pass William begins to lose his coherency of mind, captivated by listening to Grell's heartbeat and communicating via paper notes rather than his failing voice. William becomes hungry and requests that Grell bring him live food before almost biting her. She brings him a rabbit and he asks that she not watch as he eats it, so she goes to ask advice from Undertaker as to what to do. He suggests she bring him a zombie to autopsy, and she agrees to try. She goes to Special Affairs to request one and learns that the captive zombies are in varying stages of decay and wholly unpredictable, and that many of them are eating themselves. Davies grants her a corpse and warns her that a junior, who was not bitten by the zombies, has contracted the infection but that it is unlikely that living with Will should hurt Grell. Once the autopsy is complete, Undertaker shows Grell that the damage is unnatural – zombies need to breathe and eat but the air and food don't _do_ anything. However the main damage is in the brain, which has been eaten through from inside, and Undertaker requests that he autopsy Will as a live specimen would yield clearer answers. Grell flatly refuses and returns home, only to find that William has forgotten his own name.  
The next day Davies calls Grell to Special Affairs and shows Grell the state of the zombies (it's bad) and tells her that they have successfully operated on one and returned him to reaperhood, only to have him die quickly of his wounds sustained in Ipswich. This suggests that a zombie with more minor injuries, such as Will, may recover fully. Grell goes home to share this news and discovers that William has disembowelled himself violently in her bath tub. He's still conscious but upset, and when he attempts to attack her Grell jumps out to the mortal world instinctively and punches a wall until her knuckles break. When she gets back Will is asleep, and the next morning Davies requests her help separating the supervisor zombies from the Ipswich zombies, as the latter have begun to revert into mindless monsters. This done, the Ipswich zombies are destroyed.  
William writes Grell a letter during his broken snatches of coherency, in which he apologises for his treatment of her and thanks her for keeping him in her home, and upon finishing it considers the spoiled rot of his mind and justifies to himself that biting her and thus transforming her to his state of being is a good course of action. Recognising that he will kill her he scrawls a warning on her wall and ties a strip of his shirt over his eyes to calm the overbearing pain in his head. When Grell gets home the zombie attacks her, devoid of any human reasoning or presence now, and Grell kills it only to find no cinematic record and no soul. She attends a group funeral for every dead reaper, after which Davies shows her the microscopic cause of the disease, discovered too late: tiny mechanical robots with jaws made of scythe shards, which have been within the brains of the reapers taking their souls. The technology is equivalent only to the android, and Grell vows revenge.  
A brief flashback shows the woman who gave Grell the android transferring to Ipswich as a temp worker, infected with the disease herself, and passing it to the rest of the office until it overcomes her and she endures the pain of the disease tearing her apart, abetted only by the certainty that it is worth it.


	2. Waiting

The halls of the dispatch were long and white, and Grell felt a little like a ghost drifting down them. Her hair fanned out what had to be miles behind her; her heels clicked against the floor. She knew where she was going – _unfinished business_ was how it would perhaps come to be described, or _visiting an old friend_ , or _revenge_.

Perhaps she should put her scythe away. Its blade screeched against the ground as she dragged it behind her, past the point of even being able to care that her precious weapon could suffer damage. He would know that she was coming. That was all she could desire, now; he would know that she was coming, and know exactly what she intended to do to him.

The walls of Corrections were long and white, and Grell felt a little like a spectre as she retraced her steps from so long ago. She stopped in the foyer, intending to request direction – but the desk was abandoned, chair pulled back loose from the desk and papers in a frozen cascade from desk to floor. Some had drawings on them instead of print – mad, looping things, more suited to be placed on the walls of a lunatic's home than the clean swathe of this office. Somewhere beyond, the noise of a door banging open and closed reached her ears.

The first door led her into another corridor, as she knew it would, lined with doors in groups of fours. She peered into the first – a single flat white bed in a plain flat white room, with a monitor on the wall and open straps across the surface for arms, legs, neck. The lights are stark and white.

Grell walks on.

There's a somewhat luminous quality to the air, and she began to wonder if she had somehow taken a wrong turn. Had the walk always been so long? Doors, doors, doors – whispers of whimpers seemed to percolate from some, but when she put her head to each small window there was nobody in any. When she had been here there had been workers, skinny men with clipboards tailed by short secretaries with too much lipstick and fake smiles. But now there is silence, utterly.

The lights dim as she walks, and this she remembered; each lamp turned down lumen by lumen to prevent prisoners – clients, inmates, broken people who needed to be _fixed_ \- from seeing clearly, following thought through. Her eyes try to adjust, and fail.

Each room now is akin to the one she squandered in: a table, two chairs, a bed at one end and a tiny naked bulb whose function only performed when an examiner was in the room. The walls were not white, here; seedy brown, grey in places, spotted. Mould or old gore she couldn't tell, and didn't want to.

Where was everyone?

A scream, sudden, ahead – loud and echoing forever, so grievous a cry that she had only ever heard its like once before. So, galvanised and horrified in equal parts, Grell hauls her scythe up from how it hangs against the floor and broke into a run.

There is one door ahead; the end of the corridor. A finale to the piece, dark, dark against the walls as though it does not wish to be seen.

She knocks it aside, bursts through it as though it is mist, but there is nothing in the room – no furniture, no objects, no people. All is black but for the path lit by a single square skylight in the roof, which Grell looks up at and felt looking down at her.

Something moves behind her, one single soft footstep, and Grell went very still, and Grell turns, and Grell saw the creature rise up from the shadows of the corner of the room. It is William and it is Sneddon and it is U8801 and it is Helen Davies and it is every bleeding, _weeping zombie and every twitching android and it starts and stutters toward her, flickering, one hand outstretched as it begs her forgiveness and her submission and her life and it lunges -_

And Grell startled awake.

It took her a moment to orient herself; it was still strange to wake up to the sterile, undecorated white walls and the slight hum of movement from beyond the door. It was still strange, the too-solid texture of the bed that she lay on and the feeling of absolute isolation that swelled on her chest every time she remembered, having come so close to forgetting.

_Will is dead._

Some mornings she could almost convince herself that everything that had happened over the course of the last few weeks had just been a nightmare; that the meeting at Ipswich had been cancelled or – hell, that she had jumped to work on that fine sunny day, or that she hadn't been punished in the way that she had for the Ripper incident. She would keep her eyes closed for a time, pretend that she was in her own bed waking up late for her own job in Collections, not Management, and that everything was fine. And then she would open her eyes and pull herself together for the day ahead.

The staff in Special Affairs did their best. They had clipped her hair not quite to its roots and bade her stand under a far more pressurized shower as soon as she had returned to them, in an effort to cleanse herself of any chance of the contaminant. Grell understood why they had had to do that. She also understood why they had to keep her within their walls, holed up under tight scrutiny just to be certain that she hadn't been infected. But it was _boring_ , ridiculously dull, and didn't allow any distraction from the memory of her beloved's ruined body coming to pieces under the teeth of her blade.

They had insisted on taking her scythe, again for complete neutralization of the tiny robotic vampires that had to be infesting its surface after the attack. One junior had assured her that it wouldn't be damaged and would be returned as soon as possible, but – she didn't know if she could trust him. Any of them. Anyone.

Grell wondered if Hell was a lonely place.

He was there again, that junior, at her window – watching her out of the corner of his eyes, taking notes on a clipboard. Grell stretched, hauled herself from the bed and moved to the window to see if he was there for any particular announcement or was just taking observations. Without makeup, hair or clothes other than the nightwear that the department had given her she was aware that she looked hideous, but this ward in particular would have had to be remarkably backward to care. After all, he had seen far worse.

“You seem to be sleeping better now,” he called through the glass. “Not so much tossing and turning. That's a good sign. Have the nightmares stopped?”

“Not yet - but they're becoming less violent. I'm still glad to wake up and see you, though.” She stretched, muscles still stiff, and then asked, “How much longer must you keep me here?”

“Only one more day, Ms Sutcliff,” the junior informed her, making a real effort to smile. “Then you won't be stuck in here anymore and you can go h- I mean, go back to work. I'll bet your office has missed you tons.”

“Oh, of course they have! I can just see Ronnie now, trying ever-so-hard to keep the waterworks under control as he awaits my return with baited breath.” She managed to match the boy's fake smile, holding it until he laughed and walked away, and then let it drop before retreating again into the depths of the room.

They hadn't saved many of her possessions. Her photographs, her clothes, ornaments – all the little transitory items that couldn't have been replaced but equally would not be so missed. The only thing of any worth was the letter, salvaged from its designated destruction due to its 'personal significance', according to the shy young woman who had rescued it for her. That same woman had taken the time to laminate the paper so as to avoid any chance of infection, a gesture which had made Grell laugh until she cried her eyes out, because after the first jolt of lurid hilarity for so sombre a delivery to be made all shiny in plastic her nerve had broken and the grief had overwhelmed her.

That woman, too, had been trying so hard to smile.

And the contents of the letter – oh! If he had intended it to soften the blow of his death then he had been just as insensitive as he had always made out. It only opened the recognition of the possibility that they could have worked, _should_ have at least made the effort to understand one another – and only now did she really manage to believe that he had been as in the dark about the nature of their relationship as she was. And now it was far too late to remedy that mistake.

The only line of any comfort said _I want you to know that I am in no pain and little distress, and I shall pass at ease if not easily_ , and Grell could only hope - _pray_ \- that it had not been a lie. Not that it mattered now, anyway. Nothing in the world could help William now. There was only Grell, fighting for his memory – his ghost. There was still much to do before she'd be able to believe that he rested easily, wherever reapers went after an unexpected end.

But, nonetheless, it would be done.

It would be difficult to catch Keanes with nothing but two false names and a face to go on – if Grell were to follow the expected procedures. Taking a bureaucratic route would tie her in knots. But she could tackle any source in Heaven or Hell if she had to, could hunt down Keanes' records even if her identity did change – could utilise her vague knowledge of how the woman thought to pin her down and flush her out.

One more day. Just one more day spent in isolation, one more day of this terrible waiting game to see if she would dissolve into the drawling undead affliction that had taken so many reapers already. Of course, if she did, they would just flush her system out and in a week or so she would still be fine. Three others, juniors who had been infected last, had had that treatment and were recovering slowly in the rooms beside hers. To little a remedy just slightly too late, but better than nothing if she had to go through with it. Grell didn't believe that it would come to that.

Just one more day, and then the hunt would commence.


	3. Reinstating

Release day was as bright and white as every other morning that she'd woken up in after the incident with Will.

She felt that there should have been some sense of relief, something calming about being certain that she had not contracted the virus – wouldn't end up like... but there wasn't. The numbness that had been present at the back of her mind had spread now to encompass her whole being; consciousness and body both engulfed in a protective shroud of apathy. She was clean – so what? Everything was wrong anyway. One more life would not add or subtract to the overall horror.

A junior with a sign-out form met her at the desk, and then directed her to the sorry pile of what remained of her belongings. Her scythe cleaned and gleaming. A small pile of clothes that she could just about pretend weren't new. A house key to somewhere she'd never been. Helen Davies, hovering nervously beside the table. Grell narrowed her eyes. 

“Come to say a tearful farewell to your favourite inmate, hm?”

“Actually, I wanted to ask you a-”

“-Favour?” Grell cut her off, and couldn't help but grin horribly. “Why, Ms Davies, I wasn't aware that I had anything left to give.”

Davies bit her lip, an expression of great pity corroding her face. “Ms Sutcliff - Grell. Look, I am so, so sorry that all of this has happened to you. It isn't - _right_ , it isn't fair; nothing about these past few months has been fair on you! And I understand that you are mourning, and I understand that after something like this the last thing on your mind is helping people, but – well, you can tell me if I'm wrong, but I think that this could help you as much as it'll help us. Honestly, truly, I do.”

Grell stared at her, flat and cold, and couldn't bring herself to reflect on the fact that her sense of curiosity had been laid to rest somewhere along the line. “Do you really,” she said. 

“I do.” The woman seemed to have aged since Grell had seen her last; her motions were a little shakier, the conviction in her voice a little cracked. But she was nodding alongside her words, and touched one hand to her mouth before waving at the door. “Come with me. I'll be as – quick as possible.”

It was no trouble to move her belongings to storage alongside her scythe, and having done so Grell followed obediently where Davies led. She seemed to be heading deeper into Special Affairs' complex – a worrying prospect once, but now neither interesting nor frightening. Three doors, several sharp corners – and then a very open-plan room, whose lights clicked on as the doors swung open.

Grell's first thought was that it was full of prisoners.

Considering her own recent confinement, it was perhaps not unreasonable for Grell to step backward immediately, call her scythe, and hiss “What _is_ this?”. She wasn't going to be locked up again – taken in, experimented on-

“Grell.” Davies was frowning, clearly confused, and gestured into the room with her head. “I just thought... I mean, you of all people have the right to see this.”

She wasn't a threat. The fight or flight response that had risen so abruptly in Grell's chest subsided, and she banished the scythe again before taking a second, longer look.

Not prisoners; not quite. Bodies lined up along walls behind bars, but not moving – not alive. Closer to sculptures than corpses, of course; androids left as slack and empty shells in this silent storage.

“...You built them?”

“No.” Davies moved further into the room, and after only a minor hesitation Grell followed. The air was cold – machines needed no ambience, she supposed. “These are those that have been... recovered, shall we say, from incidents like yours. It's been a few years now since the first.”

Grell approached the side slowly, inherently cautious in the face of this unexpected turn. “Why don't people know?” She touched the bar, let her hand brush along them as she walked. “Surely an... inf _est_ ation of this kind should be common knowledge?”

The other woman kept pace with her strides, skipping slightly to match their height difference. “The higher ups are mostly aware of it, but there's no point in inducing panic. We've no leads as to who creates them, what they're used for – how their technology exists to this level yet. They're just... _here_ , where they shouldn't be. And we think... Ms Sutcliff? Oh.”

Her android – William's cold visage – _U8801_ – lay quiet between two other bodies, positioned as though curled up in sleep. “Some of the juniors saw fit to rewire the head to the body,” Davies murmured by way of explanation. “They felt it was weird to leave the two separate. He's the only true android we've recovered – the rest had implanted memories, a sense of self carried over from the soul to the casing. He was the only blank slate.”

Grell nodded, vaguely. It was still remarkably disquieting to see something so nearly alive so still, so artificial; and it still hurt that it resembled Will so closely. “Why do you keep them locked up? Are you worried that they'll be stolen?”

“Hardly. Very few know that we keep them here – but they're automatons. They can't move without souls, but when you come down here alone, late at night... Well, suffice to say that the bars provide a bit of a comfort blanket.”

“You're scared of them?” The notion drew a laugh from her, sharp and bitter. “Why? Afraid that they'll spring to life, follow you home?”

The look that Davies gave her inspired neither confidence nor ridicule, but it failed to kill Grell's derision. “We're not afraid of them,” Davies snapped. “Merely wary. Anyway, it doesn't matter – this isn't what I brought you here to see.” 

She steered Grell further down the hall until they came to a door; originally a small office by the looks, but containing another barred off cell with an android inside.

This android was awake.

He lifted his head as they entered, causing Grell to jump slightly – the body wasn't imposing, certainly, only a plain man suited in office attire, but the motion was uncanny. His neck had moved like a bird's, in one swift jolt before staying horribly still, green eyes on hers as he scrabbled to his feet and pressed further back into the cell. His breath hissed from him audibly, but after a moment it became apparent that he didn't intend to be the first to speak. Grell did instead.

“...Who is this?”

Davies' eyes met Grell's for a moment before she looked back upon the android. “His name was Seamus Hunt; he was in Upper Management. Went missing for a few months, presumed a deserter; a maintenance crew found him at the bottom of an elevator shaft, just sitting there, saying 'systems failure' over and over again. Freaked them right out. He-” Her explanation was cut off, Hunt moving a half step forward before seeming to catch himself and freezing again.

“For the last time, I'm not him! I'm Clarence Fairburn, I'm a Collections senior in Ipswich, and I haven't done anything to deserve this treatment!” His hands clasped the bars white-knuckled as he stared wildly out at Grell. “Who's – this? Has he come to help me?”

“This is Ms Sutcliff; she's... investigating your case. She needs to know everything you told me.”

“And then you'll free me?” He appeared to realise he was in no danger, and swayed a little forward. “If I say everything I did before you'll have got everything I can give, again – there's nothing else to gain from having me here!”

No emotional response from Davies. “For the last time, we can't let you out – you're not safe.” 

“Not _safe_?” Fairburn, directly proving the point against himself, threw himself at the bars, clinging onto them as one would a throat intended to strangle. “I'm perfectly safe! I told you, I'm _me_ , not some remote-control puppet – I told you already! I woke up in this body, in this cage, where you put me – I was in Ipswich one second and here the next! I don't know where the time went, I don't know how I got here, I know this isn't my body but _I_ didn't do this!” His cry extinguished into almost a whine, and his eyes locked onto Grell again. “Please – I'm the victim here. I don't deserve-”

“You said you remember being ill?” Davies cut across him, and with some indignance Fairburn accepted the silencing. “You said you caught flu whilst still in Ipswich.”

“Yes. I was ill for a week or so, I think – I didn't think it important – there were headaches, general symptoms, but never anything worrying. I was home off work for three days and then, when I awoke on the fourth, I was here. And I've been here since!” He slumped against the bars, half desperation slowly overcome by desolation. “Please. Madam. I'm not this... Seamus, this manager; I'm just a senior, just trying to do my job. I want to go back to my office. I want to be myself, I'd even take experiments to see why I'm like this – but this questioning is worthless. Please.”

Grell looked over him again – took in the apparently genuine emotion in his apparently fake face, the ill-fitted body of a man almost familiar being handled awkwardly by the person inhabiting it. Person? Android? Without further insight he was useless.

“I've seen everything I need to. Thank you, Ms Davies.” 

Davies nodded, shortly, and as she made to leave the room Fairburn began to shout again. “No – you can't leave me here! This isn't my fault, you can't-”

The door shut behind Grell with a distinct click, and the noise was muted immediately. The encounter hadn't shaken her, not exactly, but it had brought to her mind a thought, which was new and inflammatory. Davies was speaking again.

“There was a Clarence Fairburn on the register for Ipswich, but he was listed as having been terminated two weeks before the... incident could have occurred. He seems to be who he says he is, but everybody who could have confirmed his identity is dead – so we've no way of being certain if his soul managed to latch onto the body by itself or if he really is just a clever android, having been rebooted from wherever mission control happens to be. It's-”

Grell cut across her. “Do you believe the possibility that the soul is genuine?”

The question seemed to surprise Davies. “Yes. We know that lost souls can enter objects on whim – that's how possessions and hauntings often occur mortal-side – but we've never seen it in effect with a reaper's soul, and that he just happened upon one of the android husks is... less likely. It seems more plausible that if the soul is genuine, it didn't just drift over, but was directed.”

“Directed.” Commanded, cast like a weapon at its target. “How?”

“Well – when you have a body and a soul both in your possession, they're easy enough to combine. We've had that technology for years. From afar it's more difficult, bu-”

“You knew about this?” Davies started, the question clearly surprising her. “You knew that this was possible and you _didn't_ implement it when trying to save those we recovered from Ipswich?”

It took a moment for the answer to come; it was quiet when it did. “...It's not the same.”

“But you had an empty body. You knew how these things worked – you could have taken his soul before it was consumed, moved it across into the android.” Had Special Affairs neglected this purposefully? For research, for ease? “Why didn't you?”

“The operation was feasible, but... Listen, Grell, we could have done that. We could have saved two dozen souls, re-uploaded them to these false bodies like software. But we asked about the morality of it, asked those higher than us, and they... Had we saved their lives we would have damned them. An android cannot achieve forgiveness.” 

Grell turned on her heel away from Davies, and stared angrily into the hooded faces of the androids in their pens rather than look at the other woman. “That's ridiculous.”

“Maybe, but it wasn't our decision.” There was a hesitation, and Grell wondered suddenly how Davies actually felt about the entire ordeal. It wasn't clear in her manner – she seemed to be treating it more as just another long overtime rather than any shade of tragedy, but perhaps she was merely good at hiding her emotions. “I'm sorry – had we been able to do that we would have.”

“Leave it.” Taking a breath, Grell moved to face Davies again, hoping that her composure had held. “You said you needed something from me. Let me assume that that wasn't it.”

“No, it wasn't. That's something far simpler, actually.” She began to walk, retracing their path down the corridor between the cells until they reached the one containing U8801. “He's the only one we've any chance of controlling, by which I mean reviving him to study active rather than deactivated, but we here cannot – he doesn't answer to us at all.”

“You tried to wake him?” Grell frowned. “You know how it ended last time – he doesn't want to be alive. It would be a cruelty to reactivate him.”

“A cruel necessity.” Davies spread her hands as though blameless, then shrugged. “We need to know more about how he works; further understanding will lead us closer to being able to figure out how he was made – and, by extension, _when_ and _where_. And then we will be able to track the perpetrator at the very least, if not catch them immediately.”

Wise plan, Grell was forced to agree. She didn't want U8801 awake – he was another pillar of guilt packaged up like the dead, and would likely as not just move toward ending himself as quickly as he had the last time. But for information of his creator's whereabouts... “And how will you gain this... _further understanding_ from him, dare I ask?”

“Monitoring his behaviour, and perhaps questioning when appropriate. Do not fear for him – we will do nothing to hurt him again.” Had Grell been a younger reaper she might have taken the steady tone and imploring expression for honesty, but her years and her own perchance for subterfuge preceded her trust and she knew, immediately, that Davies was lying.

Pretending to consider the request, Grell looked over U8801's prone body once again. “On the condition that he does not remain here. I will not have him locked up as you hold the other reanimated one.”

Davies' mouth opened for a moment, silent, before she managed to put thought to word. “But – we need him here. We cannot observe him if he is anywhere else – and where do you suggest? You can't keep him at your flat. He may escape.”

“That's my condition, and my responsibility.” Grell stared her down until Davies looked away, and then added, “I will monitor him and report to you my observations, same as I did for... for the zombie. I will ensure that he does not escape and I will retain him as usefully as possible until his reel runs out of its own accord.”

Davies was frowning, deeply, but evidently recognised that she could not sway the other reaper. So, after another short moment's pause, she unlocked the barred cell door and hauled the android's still body out. She positioned it leaning against the bars, a decent mimicry of standing, and then stepped back. “Go ahead.”

Grell looked into the slate blank eyes, taking in the familiar lines of this face once again. She took a breath – just one – before speaking the words as though they were some wondrous incantation instead of a dead man's name. And, just as he had before, the android's awareness flickered back into life.

“Motor and vocal functions satisfactory,” he murmured, raising a hand to touch his throat before meeting her eyes. An expression of some surprise crossed his stiff face, and he said, “Grell Sutcliff.”

“You recognise me?”

“Yes. I do not know why. It must be within my programming to answer to you.” He seemed more fluid than he had when she had known him before – certainly he was more together. “Where are we? Who is this?”

“We're in the Grim Reaper Dispatch's office. This is Helen Davies; she's a friend.” It all came rushing back – the memories, so recent and so buried, hit her in a wave. 

He blinked. “A friend. I see. What would you have me do? Is there a reason behind my awakening?”

“You are to help us with an investigation.” It worried Grell how natural it felt to direct him, as though she were his master – it hadn't been so easy before. “Just answering questions for now.”

“I see.” He dipped his head in a nod, and then added, “Ask away.” 

What to ask first? U8801 hadn't known anything last time – but Davies wanted him for observation more than questioning. “What do you remember?”

“I have no memories.” The android looked her in the eyes, frank honestly intrinsic in his gaze, and Grell nodded.

“Do you know anything about your creator?”

“My creator?” he echoed, and blinked. “Her name was... Megan. I don't know what she looks like.”

“Do you know why she made you?” This was Davies, eyes large behind her glasses. She hadn't seen U8801 active before, but Grell had assumed she'd at least seen his record.

“I do not. I believe I was created to be of service to Grell Sutcliff.” He inclined his head in Grell's direction, but did not elaborate further. Davies hesitated, clearly weighing up her options, and then turned to Grell.

“May I keep him for an hour or two, at least? For further questions.”

Grell glanced between them, uneasy, but then conceded. “Fine. But I'll come and get him before the end of the day.”

“Of course.” Davies dipped her head in assent, and Grell left them both.

The supervisory office room had already been vacated when she ported into her workplace, the organised desk and slight lingering scent of coffee in the air the only indications that it had been used whilst she had been away. The temporary supervisor had left notes describing the situation as it stood: the first and main report detailed the sudden and dramatic increase in demonic activity in the Ipswich area. The place was crawling with them – although Colchester's office had taken on the soul collections, they simply did not have the manpower to cull the numbers to any significant degree. And nobody liked to stay in Ipswich long, even though mortal-side there had been no devastation whatsoever.

Overall activity in London had not increased, but attacks on reapers had. Three officers were currently under medical supervision, and the overall strengths of entities being reported were averaging twice higher than they had been before Grell had come to head the department. She would be on twice the fieldwork that Will had had to do, thank _God_ – and never having to be tied down to a partner. Good. She worked best alone, when her savagery could be left unbridled; and now more than ever that would fuel her.

She couldn't kill the conductor yet. _Megan_. Monstrous bitch. Hidden away like a coward, sending out the souls of her dead like spores – Grell would kill her, horribly, the moment she was able. For now the demon population would have to do, and heaven help the rest if they could not sate her fury.

 _Demons_. They had never been the nightmares that the human world cast them as; weak, hungry, devoid of the divine order that kept reapers above them, Grell had always been more parts horror than they had. Demons warped human desires; Grell acted on her own. And now another reaper had taken the same initiative.

Zombies to androids – but from where before then? U8801 had been a prototype, but Megan Keanes had given no further trace of origin, and Grell had already found her trace to go cold following her file's transfer to France. Which meant, perhaps, that she had been here in London – impersonation or simply laying low were both options. The former would require someone to have been missing from their station for her to have had time to do this – someone who could get away with the absence. One name seeped into her mind, crammed down into an avoidable corner as it had been for these past long months. One name which, even if she did turn out to be mistaken, Grell would not at all mind breaking.

Grell picked up the phone on her desk and dialled.

“Ronnie,” she said when it picked up, in as pleasant a tone as she could muster, “This is Grell. Drop whatever tedious task you're in the middle of and get to my office right away, would you?”


	4. Casting

Grell looked so strange with her hair shorn off – he'd never seen her so much as tie it back, and for it to all just suddenly be... _gone_ was disconcerting, to say the least. She seemed to have gone out of her way to feminise herself in other ways to offset the impression; it was one of the few times he'd seen her wear lipstick, and the first time he'd ever seen her wear earrings - graceful hanging things, studded with red gemstones. They complemented her look but were an open and obvious hazard in terms of catching on things and ripping half of her ear off. Ronald decided that this would be tactful to avoid mentioning.

“How're you doing?” he asked, instead. He was standing a little awkwardly in the boss's – no, it was Grell's now, so Grell's – office, trying valiantly to pretend that he had any idea what to say. Should he offer her condolences? Remind her that she had someone who cared even though Will had been... no, it would be better not to bring the subject up at all. His mentor made an impatient gesture with one hand.

“Sit down. Have a cup of coffee.”

“Uh – thanks?” Giving the coffee an unjustifiably dubious look and then a shrug, Ronald collapsed into the chair offered and leaned back on it, one hand behind his neck. He picked up the mug with the other before asking, “What did you want me for?”

“I need you to date Sneddon's secretary.”

Ronald spat the drink immediately down his own front, in what he knew was a remarkably unattractive manner. “ _What?_ Why?” 

Grimacing at the stains that now spattered her paperwork in a way remarkably reminiscent of their late superior, Grell rolled her eyes. “Oh, really. What's gotten into you in my absence, hm? Usually you'd leap at the chance of meeting a new girl. Or is she one of your exes?”

“I've never met her – I don't even know her name!” 

The spluttered protests were waived and ignored. “That's never stopped you before.”

“I don't like dating women because I'm being told to! There's something very wrong about that. A slippery slope, you know? I don't-”

“Please, Ronnie. It's important. I need to know where Sneddon is – I need to know that he's not doing something malicious out there beyond the eye of his department. And the best way to get into a department's secrets is through its secretaries - _you_ know _that_ better than anyone.”

She was serious – that much was clear in the set of her face, and Ronald knew that it wasn't just paranoia forcing her hand now. He wasn't sure what she had gone through under Sneddon's custody, nor what she had seen in Special Affairs, but if androids and zombies and reapers tied together through that man or that department then Grell's consideration was not only accountable but necessary. When he didn't reply Grell continued, taking his silence for either hesitation or acceptance. “Will tried to see him, a few weeks before he – before Ipswich. He wasn't there. Doesn't that time frame overlap just a little too closely? I know he was running experiments whilst I was there, and I know he didn't have leave filed when he was gone. I've no clearance to check whether the department knows where he is, officially, and even if I had that it were _me_ snooping around would raise immediate suspicion. I need you, Ronnie, dear. It _has_ to be you.”

“...Alright.” Grell looked surprised that he had given in so easily, so Ronald spread his hands and repeated it. “Alright! I get what you're getting at, Senior, really I do. I know this isn't a game. Where can I find the lady in question?”

Grell was smiling wide now, subtly more triumphant than happy. “Thank you, Ronnie! Take the day off, officially, to catch up with her – I'll clear your paperwork. Report back to me the moment you know _anything_ , understand?” 

“Anything. Gotcha.” Downing the lukewarm remainder of his coffee, Ronald stood to leave. “Oh, and Senior – Grell...” Her eyes were huge and green and lacking any facet of desire for sympathy, so he finished impotently, “It's nice to have you back.”

It took him some time to find the department of Corrections and Rehabilitation – Ronald had never been there before, and it was not signposted. But, after two circling of the floor and one stop to ask directions of another passing reaper, he found it – surprisingly close to Collections and gate-kept by a blonde woman, evidently a secretary, her attentions deep in the paperwork on the desk in front of her. Ronald steeled himself as he approached.

“Excuse me, madam?”

She looked up sharply, but seemed to relax upon the sight of him. “Oh – hello! Can I help you?”

“I'm sure you can,” he said, leaning his forearms on her desk and flashing his most charming grin. “I came here looking for names, but actually I'd settle for yours.”

The secretary coloured more than Ronald had expected from the remark, and she scooted her chair backward from the desk. “Winters. But, ah – the names that you needed otherwise? What're you looking for? Records, filed statements?”

“Actually, what with your boss being AWOL and all, I was thinking we could...”

“AWOL?” she repeated blankly. “No, Mr Sneddon is-”

“Right here, actually,” said a smooth voice behind Ronald, and he whipped around to find himself face to face with a smartly dressed older reaper. The man smiled genially, as an predator might, and then said, “If you're looking for any specifics of the department, you may find me to be of more help than Celia here.”

“Uh – yes, sir, I was just after some records of, um, someone called – Jenkins? Olivia Jenkins?” It was the first name that had come to his head – embarrassingly enough it was that of his first girlfriend – and Sneddon's smile widened. It was nowhere near as threatening as Grell's could be; he seemed almost to be laughing at Ronald.

“My dear boy, if you're here to try and score a date with my secretary you needn't lie about it. She's a beautiful thing and deserves the attention. I would simply ask that you perhaps distract her _out_ side of work hours rather than when she's supposed to be getting ready, alright?” 

“Uh – yessir, right you are, sir. Sorry.” It took a second for what Sneddon had just said to quite click in Ronald's head. “Getting ready? Not already set up with someone, I hope?”

The poor lady was blushing something awful now, but Sneddon laughed. “Oh, no! Just department business as usual, no competition, I assure you. Or at least, I'm fairly certain – you're not seeing anyone, are you, Celia?”

She shook her head silently, annoyance in the narrowing of her eyes, but Sneddon ignored it. “There you go. You're in the clear, Mr... What was your name?”

“Knox, sir. Errand-boy for Spectacles.” He didn't want Sneddon to know that he was a subordinate of Grell's – not least because she'd kill him if he did. “So I should come back later, then?”

Celia replied, apparently tired of being talked about. “I've a break an hour from now. Catch me then, please, and let me do my job now.”

“Right you are, miss.” Ronald nodded, feigning another smile, and began to back away. “Adios.”

He heard Celia and Sneddon talking as he retreated down the corridor, but couldn't quite determine if it were about his clumsy flirtation – Sneddon was talking fairly forcefully over Celia's quiet voice, but it didn't sound like an argument. 

Ronald turned the corner and wondered how Sneddon had managed to appear behind him without making noise, and equally how he had managed to arrive at such a bad moment. Luck? Perhaps. Perhaps not.

Exactly one hour and ten minutes later Ronald lounged in the Corrections and Rehabilitation break room, trying not to feel out of place in the pristine surroundings. Collections' break room was a cluttered mess, mugs and papers everywhere, testimony to its constant use; this one looked as if he and Celia were the first occupants it had had for weeks. 

Celia herself seemed friendly enough. She was chattier now, having apparently decided that Ronald was honest, and he wondered if she would have made a genuinely good date had he not been courting her under Grell's commanding. She was certainly pretty enough – but then and again, very few women failed to meet Ronald's rather low standards there.

“So, what'd'you think? Do you want to go somewhere mortal-side?” 

Celia lit up at the suggestion. “Oh, that would be wonderful! We could go to the Holborn, or Simpson's-in-the-Strand does good meals, or-”

“Popular with the blokes, huh?” It had been meant as a kind tease, but Celia immediately withdrew into herself, her gaze skittering away from Ronald and to the floor.

“Oh, um, no... We just sometimes have nights out with the department. Nice little business evenings – there's few enough of us to do that.”

“Sounds nice.” She still looked put out, so Ronald nudged her and smiled. “That wasn't a jibe, y'know? Sorry if it came out wrong.”

“Don't worry about it.” Shaking her head, Celia shrugged. “So – would you be up for the Holburn? Are you free tonight, seven pm?”

“Tonight?” Ronald was momentarily taken aback, but managed to recover. “Sure! Want me to pick you up?” _She must really into me_ , he thought. Girls didn't tend to agree to fancy meals on the first night of knowing a guy – maybe he was the first date opportunity she'd had in a while. That'd certainly make him desperate.

“Actually, I could meet you there, if that's easier.”

“You could?” That wasn't something he'd heard before when dating mortal-side. “How would you get there?”

“I can jump that far,” she told him, almost eagerly. “My core's just strong enough for that. I'd have to rely on you to get me home, though.”

“No problem-o, I can carry the two of us no bother.” 

Finally Celia did smile back. “Fantastic,” she said. “See you there.”

* * *

Sometimes it was easy to laugh; act out his easy charm as though everything was as it should have been. And then other times he would suddenly recall his mentor stumbling into work covered in blood, her eyes wild and her scythe hanging loose at her side – he'd tried to go to her, help her however she needed, but Grell had snarled at him to _stay away!_ and only after she'd disappeared again had he understood what had occurred.

Sometimes he remembered watching Spears limp though the office on Grell's arm with an expression more lost than he'd ever seen and the stench of decay hanging over him like a cloud. Sometimes he remembered the dead look in the robotic Spears' eyes right before his head was knocked clean off. 

Ronald tried to shake these thoughts from his head and focus on knotting the tie at his neck. He so rarely dressed up for dates – usually they were just expensive foreplay; drinks at a bar, or the occasional round of light snacks. But today the prize was information, not a one night stand, so he had to draw it out and seem respectful and genuine. It felt a bit shit to be using a lass like this, but desperate times called for desperate needs.

When he got to the restaurant Celia was waiting for him; almost surprisingly she'd outdone him in the formality of her dress, which was blue and cut wide. It was perhaps natural when coming mortal-side to dress up, but somehow Ronald always managed to forget how stringent the living world still was with women's attire.

“You look beautiful,” he told her, truthfully. It made Celia smile.

“You look rather dashing yourself. Shall we?” She offered him her hand, and he took it as they made their way into the restaurant. She felt small-boned, delicate through his gloves, and chilly. She must have been waiting here for some time for him.

“You're pretty cold-blooded, aren't you?” He hadn't meant anything by the comment, but Celia snatched her hand back as though horrified.

“It's a cold evening!” she exclaimed, and wrung both hands as though to warm them. “I get cold easily. Your hands aren't exactly hotplates themselves.”

“Sorry – sorry!” She was glaring now, even as a waiter tried to seat them and avoid catching either of their eyes, and Ronald held his hands up in what he hoped was a placating manner. He'd be screwed if she tried to leave. “I should've got here sooner, I know. But it's warmer in here, at least. Sorry.”

“Hm.” Was that acceptance of the apology? Women weren't supposed to be difficult – they were supposed to find him attractive enough to laugh along with any social mishaps that he came out with, or at the very least counter them with something well-humoured. Celia had hidden herself behind the menu, and what had supposed to be a good evening felt soured. “I think I'll have lamb.”

“What? Oh. Yes. That does look good.” Bad date, awful evening even only five minutes in, but perhaps it could be rescued. “The salmon looks good too, though.”

“Hm.” Ronald tried to meet her eyes, ascertain what she was thinking, but Celia avoided him and they ordered separately. The waiter who had seated them seemed to become only more uncomfortable with this, and Ronald wished she'd let him order as was proper. She must have known that, if she did come out as often as she said with her department. And then, suddenly, she let out a loud huff of what had to be disappointment, and Ronald braced himself for a rejection–

“I'm sorry – what must you think of me? Snapping like that – I didn't mean to. These past few days have just been so much!”

Ronald stared at her. “What?”

* * *

Ronald jumped Celia back to her apartment shortly after ten o'clock had passed, one arm around her waist, laughing. Her body was cold again, so he'd suggested that they move out quickly rather than lingering in streets either side of the divide, and she'd agreed. The evening had eased steadily into a good night after the initial slip; Celia was understandably stressed, he'd found, due to her workload. She hadn't known much about the recent goings on – rumours and whispers only, no real facts – so Ronald had told her as much as he knew about Ipswich and the surrounding chaos as he could, excluding Grell, and been rewarded with the information that he'd come for. She was one of only three secretaries in the department, the other two being juniors, and Corrections was making a claim on the remaining victims of the zombies. And yet she barely even knew how they'd come to be!

In spite of the overly heavy nature of this conversation, it had somehow drifted to their bosses – Ronald having remarked about Spears' passing – and as it turned out, Celia's boss, the dread Sneddon himself, was apparently just as hard going. She'd said she never could figure how he was feeling – like he was a different person every day! – and Ronald had sympathised, because boy, whilst Spears had been exactly the same person every day it sure as hell wasn't a person Ronald knew how to decipher. And then they'd trailed onto other colleagues, found that they had several mutual acquaintances, and relaxed into each others' company easy as.

“Thanks for the meal, Ronald,” she said softly as they parted. “Let's do it again sometime.”

“Yeah. I'd like that.” He smiled until she'd shut her door, considered briefly whether he should wait until the next morning to bother Grell, and then remembered that the directive had been _as soon as_. 

Grell was scribbling away across some papers when he jumped straight into her office, and spoke without taking her eyes off them. “What've you got?”

“Sneddon's back,” he told her, and her head snapped up, pen stilled immediately, her lips framing a question that drowned in the rest of the report. “And there's a hearing on, in two days' time – for those Special Affairs juniors, you know? The ones that were infected but they managed to pull them back in time? Corrections has made a claim for them, to, ah, 'help them recover from the ordeal'. I don't know what they want to do to them, but I figured you'd want to know.”

His senior's mouth closed for a moment, a frown crossing her brow with the fleeting nature of clouds giving portent of a storm before it cleared. “A hearing. And will the man himself attend?”

“I think so. From what Celia said he'll be doing most of the talking, actually.”

“Against whom? The juniors?”

“Yeah – but there's not really an opposition. They expect it to go uncontested, as the juniors can't be expected to go back to work immediately. Celia said they'll need mental evaluations at the very least before they're reinstated – which apparently Corrections is qualified for. Also, she didn't seem to know any concrete details about, uh, Ipswich.” The name hung for a moment. “...So if Sneddon does know the exact nature of what went down, he's keeping quiet. It's not like she's too unimportant to tell – she's one of only three secretaries between five seniors, and the other two are juniors. She's been working there twenty years – almost as long as your man himself. But she doesn't know him very well.”

“I'll bet.” Grell seemed to be turning the information over in her mind. “The juniors – they're all Special Affairs, aren't they?”

“Two Special Affairs and one Medical.”

“Hmm _mm_ ,” said Grell, stretching the sound just long enough for it to become uncomfortable. “That _is_ interesting. And she – Celia, did you say? – she said that those departments themselves _don't_ want to contest the sentencing of their juniors?” One of her hands was tapping the desk, playing almost anxiously against the wood. But Ronald knew Grell, and she didn't do anxious – she was plotting. That tended to make other people nervous.

“She didn't mention anything about them – but she didn't seem to view it as a sentencing. She reckons it's genuinely what's best for them.”

“Hah.” Something faraway came into Grell's eyes, but if it were a memory she didn't share it with Ronald. “I suppose they never will. And you... was there anything else?”

Nothing notable. Ronald shrugged. “Don't think so. She was friendly enough – didn't ask anything about you, so no fear there. I jumped her home; she lives up in the apartments Southside, nothing fancy. If Sneddon's up to anything I don't think his staff are in on it.”

“Interesting.” Grell met Ronald's gaze, still distant, and then said only, “Well. Thank you for doing this for me.”

“No bother, Senior.” Giving a lazy faux salute, Ronald backed toward the door. “I hope you find what you're looking for, yeah?”

“Mm.” Her head was inclined toward the desk again, and Grell was scribbling down words faster than she had been before. Ronald watched her, more than half inclined to encourage her to call it a night and go home, but after a moment merely let out a soft sigh and saw himself out.

Grell didn't notice him leave, but after some time did put her pen down, and stared narrow-eyed at the notes covering her desk, occasionally mouthing words as though articulation could string the disparate thoughts into one clear blame.

Almost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Restaurant names found [here](http://1890swriters.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/the-ten-best-restaurants-in-london.html)


	5. Dreaming

“Where are you going?” U8801 frowned gently, and Grell huffed a theatrical sigh in his direction.

“I'm taking a reap. I've missed doing the dirty work. And you, love, can start pulling your weight around here! Can you write, read? Make sense of forms?”

“Give me something to read?” She handed him a form – the first off the desk, it was about assigning overtime – and he nodded immediately. “Yes. I can understand this, and will be able to write equally well presently.”

“Excellent.” Grell nodded, patted the back of the chair, and then left him to it. Some would perhaps question the intelligence of leaving an android in charge of management level filing. They would have to be far less disinterested than Grell to do so.

There was half an hour before the soul was due to be collected – which meant that she had plenty of time to take a short detour. The walk between Collections and Special Affairs was a short one, and luck was in her favour; Davies was behind her desk, alone and waiting to be walked in on.

“Why didn't you tell me that there was to be a hearing, Ms Davies?”

“Hm-? Oh. Grell. I didn't tell you about the hearing because I thought you had enough on your plate as it was.” She hadn't looked up from her papers – was scrawling something fast across a page.

“They're going to be sent to Corrections if they lose the case! Who've you got standing to defend them?”

“Defend them?” Davies looked up now, sharply, one eyebrow raised in questioning. “Against what? The department agrees that a time spent in C&R would be good for them. They've barely recovered under us – we've done everything to fix their bodies, but their minds remain in bad shape. They're the sort of patients that C&R are very good at helping.”

“ _Helping?_ ” Grell stared at her, aghast. “Is that what you call what they do?”

“Yes – why, what do you...” Davies trailed off, and then her gaze snapped up to meet Grell's, eyes very wide. “Oh, god, I forgot. 

“Forgot what, Helen?” Grell encroached further, blocking the light over the desk. For a moment it shook her, to see her own shadow so alien without her hair, but she let the disorientation pass. “Forgot that they use torture to achieve their ends, or that _I_ was one of countless subjected to this?”

“...The latter.” Hunching slightly under Grell's accusation, Davies pushed her papers to one side and leaned back awkwardly. “You were there with heavy focus on _Correction_. These juniors need R rather than C.”

“You sound like you know a lot about it.”

“Well, I did once work there.” It was a defensive answer, Davies' discomfort making her sound sarky. “I was in C&R for five years before I was transferred here – and I know Andreas' methods aren't exactly friendly, he's easily pushed, but the juniors won't be... _hurt_ like you were. It'll help them.”

 _Andreas_. To hear the name said so lightly, as though the man were as personable as any, made Grell's skin crawl. To know that Davies had worked with him – _under_ him, presumably, made her feel worse.

“He's a monster,” she hissed. “Took his homophobia out on me for pleasure, not any shade of altruism. Your juniors would fare better stuck in a room with a half dozen demons and a saw hook.” Davies tried to reply, some protest rising low from her throat, but Grell had no inclination to listen. She stepped back sharply, trying and failing not to let her face warp into a feral snarl, and then jumped out into the mortal world.

London was full of grey rain, and for a moment Grell just stood, letting it cleanse her. It didn't matter who Davies had been. She wasn't important. Her quarry was important, her eventual vengeance would be important, but everyone in between that and Grell were as dust motes in the air.

The reap passed quickly in a haze of blood and bitterness – no demons, unfortunately, but the reel was interesting enough to distract. A young nobleman without heir, dying from a common cold that no amount of money could heal him from. His angry, jealous soul made Grell wonder how hers had seemed to whomever had reaped her. So contorted, aggressive? It seemed likely.

She didn't go directly back to the office. Instead she took the time to walk the streets, mortal-side, invisible to the humans who would fear her and half-hoping to run into an advisory who wouldn't. The smell of the streets was as cloying and off as always but below that, not undetectable but certainly easy to overlook, was the tell-tale tang of a demon. One had passed this way recently, meandering through the crowd doubtless in a guise more pleasing than its natural countenance, and for the first time in a fair while Grell wondered exactly where Sebastian was these days. Still in London? Certainly. Still bound to his tiny blue child-master? As far as she knew. He'd been a pleasant pass-time, whilst it had lasted.

Mortal London! Hive of a thousand sins, nest of a million drab, desperate souls, dying every day only to be replaced by squalling bairns which most humans seemed to push out without thinking. Even the wealthy lived sickly lives, still too caught up in backstabbing and scrabbling for gains to understand their own plight. Grell watched them as they milled around her, urchin and nobleman alike veering slightly in their paths to avoid instinctively the invisible reaper. Death stood amongst them, baleful in her viewing, and wondered if she would be chased up for killing more of them. Whore or high-born; who would feel the loss of either?

Every current musing in her head was geared as a distraction. The time for murder was not now; even with the workforce spread thin, understaffed and struggling, the council would still pick her up on it and that would be unacceptable. Grell needed her position; needed its freedom for her hunt. The time for murder would come after that had concluded, either in the death of the rogue reaper she trailed or, failing that, the bloodbath mortal-side when her mind finally snapped.

Unhealthy thoughts. Grell shook herself, grinned more to keep herself in practice than any real emotion, and ported back to the office.

U8801 had managed to fill in half of her paperwork – his mechanical handwriting was surprisingly artistic, an oddly influenced mixture of her own flare and printed letters, but he had no way of inputting notations for reaps he had not attended. He seemed at ease, and for the remainder of the afternoon Grell sat beside him and they worked in tandem. Other members of staff started visibly and in some cases violently when they came in to hand in their own paperwork, but the rumours had already passed through somehow – office gossip spread faster than flu in a workforce this small, even across different departments. Only Ronald stopped for more than a moment to question it, not surprised but expressing a cagey interest, something on the edge of his tone suggesting Grell should have told him about the android. U8801, for his part, was happy to see Ronald even though he didn't recognise him. The attitude of the rest of the department had made him clearly uneasy, and when Ronald left U8801said, “I am alien to them.”

“Yes.” Grell signed off her last sheet, thumbed through the accumulated pile at her side to check that everyone had handed in, and then sat hers atop the heap. “Most reapers have never seen anything like you.”

“But I am not unique. There are more like me.”

Something was off in his tone. “The others in Special Affairs, you mean?”

“No. There are others like _me_.” Giving her a wholly quizzical look, U8801 added, “You don't know this?”

“Should I?” His tone suggested everyone should. “Did Helen Davies tell you this?”

“No. It's just a fact that I know.”

A dangerous fact. Grell took a mental note of it, weighed up whether she should tell Davies – quickly deciding against it – and then nodded. “Thank you for telling me.” She trusted that U8801 wouldn't lie to her, but did not for a second believe that it was safe to impart her theories to him; when he had been reaped the first time round it had been revealed that he had a command terminal linked into him, potentially logging everything he learned, and even though Special Affairs had wiped the cinematic record that powered him there was no way of knowing whether that connection had been re-established. It was something she would investigate later.

For now she just took his hand and jumped home, stepping easily into her new flat. Drab, boring, bare – the place was monochrome, but spacious. One day she would get round to decorating, once every more urgent item no longer merited her attention.

U8801 stumbled slightly on entry, and Grell caught him on instinct. He was still getting used to the jumping, but he managed to righten himself quickly and did not pull away from her. Grell smiled, as gently as she could, and let him go. “Need anything from me?”

Same as last night, he didn't – the android seemed content to merely exist without any form of entertainment, which pleased Grell. She didn't enjoy being in the same room as him, so had set him up in the sitting room – this flat was small, lacking a second bedroom – and he had remained sitting where she had left him every time she had nosed round the door to check. When she had asked what he was doing, he had replied “Thinking.” An odd housemate certainly, but far more pleasant than her last. 

On a whim Grell sat down next to him after he had settled, drawing one leg up onto the couch to rest her chin on. “You did those papers well today,” she started. “Do you like working like that?”

“As much as I can like anything.” There was as little expression on his face as ever, but the news was excellent – if U8801 could file her paperwork then Grell could free up time for various other pursuits – attending the hearing first and foremost, but equally going over what little information she had found concerning Keanes and casting the net further afield to find more. It didn't seem likely that she could be far away; her warp core would not be strong enough to have brought U8801 to London had she not been in the area, and assuming that she had been physically present in Ipswich when she had begun spreading her foul plague that gave her a set path to follow. From there, though, Grell would have to infer the trail; second guess the woman's next move.

“You look far away.” U8801's flat voice snapped her out of the thought more sharply than it should have – he was watching her now, and for the first time that day Grell really _saw_ him, and it took her breath again. 

“I am far away,” she managed, after a moment. “Distant indeed, considering the future.” Impulsively she took his hand, and then dropped it equally quickly. “Do you have to be so – cold?”

“Optimum functioning occurs at five degrees Celsius. However, if you would prefer this to be raised, I believe that I could be warmer without losing too noticeable a value of coherency and control.”

“Could you try... thirty eight? Give or take?”

He nodded, and then said, “It may take time for me to adjust.”

“That's alright. Take as long as you need.”

A slight hum emanated from U8801, which Grell first took for agreement and then realised was coming from his chest, presumably an internal mechanism setting about the task. His body settled slightly against her, and then, unexpectedly, he touched her shoulder. “Your hair used to be longer,” he noted, as though having only just realised, hand tracing an impersonal line from the nape of her neck upward through the jagged remains. Grell nodded against him and tried to smile.

“It was time to get it cut,” she managed. “It had never been a hazard before, but once is all it takes.”

“Did something happen to you?”

“...Yes. Yes it did.” He looked so sincere, meaningful if not curious, watching her out of green eyes that didn't belong to him. Something cracked within Grell, the sharp shot of ceramic under too much pressure, as he frowned very gently and shifted abruptly from the android to the ghost.

“Crying,” he said softly. “To shed tears in distress, pain, or sorrow. Why are you crying?”

“No reason – nothing! It's just you look so like someone I loved.”

“William.” The name made her startle, her hands balling instinctively in a defensive gesture, and U8801 managed an expression of passable concern. “Do you not love him still?”

“I-!” She couldn't breathe again, her guilt wretched in her mouth as she stared at the body of her love and saw with lurid clarity the madness that had overcome him, those grey-green eyes inhuman and lost to her even as she had cut him into pieces in her old home. Not love him! Grief overcame her in a wall, each instant of the past months coalescing in a hard brick that constricted her limbs, her throat, her heart. He was gone and she had killed him and even as she curled over herself his arms were around her, a rigid support that she didn't deserve, and he made no sound as Grell cried herself out against his chest, her voice rough and raw as anguish broke from her in bubbles of heartache. He'd never held her like this, never would lower himself to that and now never could, and his body was cold smooth fiction as this poor facsimile tried through force of will to comfort her by presence alone – and fell so, so short.

“I'm sorry,” he murmured, some time later, when her sobs had turned to silent gasps, pulling in air she didn't need to breathe to steady her drowning mind. “I am so sorry.”

* * *

As Grell lay in bed that night she considered the man sleeping next to her, uncertain of how she felt. She loved him – always, always had loved him – but he was so distant. So cold.

So, in an effort to negate some of this ice between them she murmured his name, once, and frowned when he didn't stir. Ignoring her? Well, that was true to form. Mildly annoyed but still too sleepy to berate him, she shifted herself forward and pressed her face against the back of his neck.

His skin was soft and cool - no, cold, downright frozen, and for a moment this stopped her dead. She took his shoulder and shook him, gently at first and then with more force as panic began to set in, until she managed to turn him over – haul his body toward her, shout – and found his corpse rotting, sticky pink gore from the wound in his skull complemented by the gashed wires that splayed from his neck and those eyes, those cold, dead, a _ccusing eyes-_

And Grell startled awake, clawing at her covers, scrabbling to sit upright and catch her breath. There were hands around her throat, constrictions on her chest, panic flaring inside her – but she was alone in the bed, and swallowing eased some of the immediate pain. It was okay. It was okay. It wasn't okay, but she wasn't going to tear herself up about it. Not here. Not now. Not yet.

A figure stood at her window – but the resulting burst of fear subsided as soon as she recognised the form before her. William's body; U8801.

“Why're you in here?”

His head turned, catching the light slightly more brightly than an organic being would. “I don't sleep. I felt it reassuring to be certain of your safety.”

“My guardian angel,” she murmured, wondering if his presence had somehow triggered the nightmare. “Come here, will you – sit with me?”

“Of course.” 

He moved forward – seemed almost to glide in the half-light – and collapsed fluidly beside her, pulling his legs up to mirror her position. There he sat motionless, head inclined slightly toward her, eyes on her own. His body was too much William's, his actions too smooth to be recognised as anything but automated, but his breaths warmed the space around her and his eyes were not dead and, alien though he was, he was far too familiar.

She put her palm to his cheek, stroked circles with her thumb and watched his eyelids droop. His own hand found hers and interlaced, pressing her fingers against his skin. Warm, living skin; had it not been so unnaturally featureless she could have lost herself in the contact. Warm, living skin, steady lungs and the expression of a man cast into bliss by the touch of another.

Grell leaned toward him and let the android close the space between them himself. It was far more pleasant to kiss him at body temperature – the artificial smoothness of his lips could be forgotten, the sterile lack of scent was not a problem, and his hands found the back of her head and her thigh, supporting one and bracing himself slightly against the other. Her hands found his back, holding him closer than was perhaps prudent – he murmured her name once, twice against her lips, it drew from her a mistake.

“ _Will_ ,” she breathed, and the android recoiled from her immediately.

“I'm not _him_ ,” UU801 hissed, more expression etched into his face than she'd seen from any machine. “I am not the man that you loved.”

“In this darkness, who's to know? Weren't you supposed to make me happy?” Grell knew that she wasn't being fair; was taking advantage of him again – but something in her still stank of the loss enough that she could have torn him apart had she thought it would make her feel better. She needed him; needed the fragile, short-lived quiet that such a pretence could bring. Moving toward him made him arch further back.

“To please yourself like this and be content now will only spawn later regret,” he informed her – terribly robotically. “Pleasure and happiness are confused in your mind.”

The words rang familiar, and that stopped her. “You _do_ remember.”

“Remember what?” He gave her a sidelong look, and then shook his head. “I doubt you'd find much satisfaction in me anyway. I am anatomically imperfect; biologically flawed.”

Grell hesitated. “Your creator said...”

“I think that we are both aware by now that my creator was an inventive and manipulative donor of lies. After all, what else could a mechanical man be used for? How else could she have persuaded you to take me in?” A trace of agitation was appearing in him again; he bunched the duvet beneath one fist, voice sharper with the accusation. It stung.

“I didn't bring you here because I wanted to use you,” she protested. “I was curious, interested, but even had I not been – she intended to scrap you otherwise.”

“So you played the saviour,” he countered, voice dreadfully cold. “Took me in not because you wanted me but because you didn't want my end upon your conscience.”

“What would you have had me do?” Grell snapped, suddenly having to put effort into cooling her tone. “Left you to die?”

“I was not alive.” It wasn't the words that stopped Grell dead – it was their absolute lack of inflection. U8801 projected no emotion now but only watched her, entirely detached, and she wondered if he resented being awake once again. She hesitated, feeling the hostility drain out of her as quickly as it had built up, and then merely sighed.

“Well, W- U8801... what do you want me to do?”

The android considered it. “Could you – tell me about the man I am built to mimic. I know that his passing is affecting you greatly, and I know that you loved him, but I don't know the context. I know that some consider me to be an amoral paper effigy, created in some form of spite - but I don't know who he was. I don't know how long ago he died.”

Grell looked him over – saw the emptiness behind his eyes, the hard cast of a lost soul. The potential for life existed in him yet, in spite of it all, buried beneath an absolute lack of identity. He needed honesty now; the gift of understanding. And so she spoke.

“William T Spears was my beloved, my other half, my closest friend – I knew him for almost a century. It's not yet been two weeks since I put him down.”


	6. Cornering

It was almost a trial, although for the first time Grell was not standing as the guilty party. The three reapers who did were traumatized; they answered the questions asked of them with a fumbling bleariness, swaying their own case against them with every word they spoke. But Grell was on their side – and she fought for them.

Whether this was due to feeling honestly protective or because their antagonist was Sneddon she didn't know.

It was a large hearing, with more reapers mobilised than had been even for hers after the Ripper incidents, and her opponent was using his audience well. He wore the body of a straight-faced middle aged man, somewhat distinguished and stately enough to command respect, and spat barbed arguments at her with all the grace of a politician. _Not his first time_ , Grell knew, but his method of speech was wholly different to the tactics employed during the previous hearing. In that he had hated her – here he was positioned as the selfless do-gooder.

“--You suggest that they would be best returning to work? In the state that they are in now? Scared, confused, isolated – after all that they've been through? You suggest that they receive no aid whatsoever?”

Each point was directed at her, tone almost kind, as though he _understood_ her concern, yes, but wanted her to remember who exactly the expert was. Her own rebukes had to match that sleek courtesy. “They shall receive the aid of their colleagues and friends, surrounded by support rather than isolated in cells waiting for their daily analysis from a shrink.”

Sneddon sighed softly, and took time to adjust one cuff before replying. “What you don't understand, Mr Sutcliff, what you have never understood, is that my department is not a punishment. My department is a solution, and will provide the help that these men – these blameless but _inarguably_ damaged men – need. All the well-meaning efforts in the world cannot compare to the value of skilled aid.”

“Skilled aid?” It was difficult not to lose composure there and then, so Grell turned away from Sneddon to address the court. “This man is a fraud and a sadist.”

“And this man is a transvestite and a murderer,” Sneddon countered, spreading his arms wide. “You all know me; you know the record of my department, you know my methods of operations, you know that-”

“What about Caroline Haw? Did you help her?”

Sneddon went still, and then turned his gaze to Grell. His face was blank, utterly expressionless, but he recovered well: said, “The procedure on Ms Haw was cleared and overseen by several members of Upper Management, and fully justified. No illegalities occurred.”

“No illegalities? You cut-”

“Mr-Sutcliff-you-do-not-have-clearance-to-talk-about-this-so-please-refrain-from-doing-so!” 

He was giving her a wide-eyed _don't out my illegal activities to the courtroom_ kind of look, so Grell attempted to repeat the statement. “You cut out her-”

“ _Sutcliff!_ ”

Grell flinched – because it wasn't Sneddon that had stopped her. The judge was staring down at her with exactly the same expression, and she realised abruptly that she was doomed to lose the case.

“Sutcliff, you were asked to stop speaking,” he continued, more quietly. “The... incident with Haw is known to us, and you of all people should be smart enough not to shout about it in public. Have you any further points to make against Mr Sneddon, or for your own case?”

“...No, sir,” she said, trying to keep her tone neutral. “No, sir, I have nothing more to say.”

“Okay,” he replied, rather placidly. “Mr Sneddon, a conclusion to your arguments?”

“These juniors need help, which I can give and Sutcliff, whilst clearly well meaning, cannot. They should therefore be transferred to my department until they are recovered from their ordeal.” He was almost smiling, the expression given away by a curl at the side of his mouth, and understandably so; the judge nodded, once, and within minutes the hearing was concluded.

Grell watched Sneddon leave through the far door, moving gracefully and without haste but nonetheless not hanging around. She had to catch him which outwith his department – had to move _now_.

She was in the corridor before he'd turned the corner, and tailed him until the others leaving had gone their separate ways.

“Sneddon – oi! Stop and talk to me, you faceless bastard.”

“The trial's over, Grell Sutcliff,” Sneddon called without turning. “Over. Finished. I won.” He didn't stop walking, so Grell darted forward and snatched at his arm.

“Hey – don't you walk away from me-”

She caught his wrist in her outstretched fingers, attempting to yank him backward, but Sneddon managed to tear his hand free of her grip before she could get a proper hold on him. But not before she'd felt the cold solidity of his skin, that cool metallic betrayal of something close to home. 

“You're one of them,” she breathed – but may as well have been talking to herself. The man – the _android_ \- had increased his pace, briskly making his escape down the corridor whilst she stood still, dumbfounded. And then - “Hey! _Hey_!”

Sneddon paid her no attention until she caught up with him and threw him against the wall, taking advantage of his form's stature and the unanticipated attack in order to pin him up. He struggled, viciously, but fear was no match for fury.

“Not so tough now that you're not the one in control, are you?”

“Sutcliff – don't you dare -”

She shoved him through the nearest door – someone's office, thankfully empty – and slammed it behind herself. “How long have you been here?”

“I don't know what you mean-”

“Don't play games! I know what you are, you bastard, and you are going to talk even if I have to rip every part of you to pieces but your tongue to get there.”

“Please – I have no id-”

Grell summoned her scythe, ignored the abject horror on Sneddon's face, and rammed it down through his wrist. 

Sneddon _screamed_. At first it was fear and then, upon laying eyes on the stump of his arm, absolute horror – he screamed like Haw had, blank and unrestrained. Grell slapped him hard across the face and he stopped, but his gaze crawled back to the open wires and twitching severed hand and she could see the abject panic flaring again.

“I – I – what have you done? What happened to me?”

“You're an _android_ ,” she hissed, leaning over him. “You've infiltrated _my_ dispatch, god knows how, and it's the worst mistake you've ever made. Tell me – where is your creator?”

“Sutcliff, you moron, don't you understand?! _I have no awareness of being like this!_ I don't know what has happened to me – I don't know what I am, I don't know when this happened, I don't know-” he stopped abruptly, and stared down at the stump of his arm. “Grell,” he started again, suddenly quiet. “Kill me.”

“What?”

“Kill me! You need to find out if I have a soul, or if I am entirely fabricated – why I'm here, why this was done to me – if I am being used as an information conduit that must be stopped; if someone is using me to - _kill me!_ ”

Grell hesitated, her mistrust warring with the anguish in his face, and seeing this made him lash out at her – enough incentive to drive her scythe through his chest.

The record was his, at least; that was obvious from the off. It started with the swaying haze of an overdose and faded white into the first awareness of reaper-hood, without any overlaid voice – or indeed any sound at all. Reaper records were not made to be judged, and so carried no internal monologue to explain their actions. It skimmed fast through the trainee years – during which the man was crude, derogatory and well-liked by peers with a similar outlook on life – and then his junior years, which were equally unremarkable. Low-pass grades leading to some disdain, low field ability favouring a desk job. A promotion to senior revealing an unexpected proficiency for teaching; a promotion to Ethics instructor welcomed. Background dabbling in changing form started about then; not intuitive but easily learned. 

From teacher he had progressed to an examiner; from examiner he had gained enough trust and reputation that suggestion of a sub-department to help reapers with issues that could potentially lead to termination was considered and approved. And _here_ was where he finally definitively excelled; an unusual proficiency for psychiatry led him to often be able to talk perpetrators into circles – spilling forth their plans, their logic and their motives. This pleased the higher-ups; the fewer wasted reaper lives under their jurisdiction the better. So much so that Sneddon was granted a junior worker; another bright young reaper moved from Collections to Corrections after displaying unusual insight into the conscious mind. The sight of the junior almost tore Grell out of the record.

He was like her.

 _Mayfair_ , he mouthed upon introducing himself, dark hair still cut short in curls, frame still slim and masculine, motions sure and easy. Nothing to give him away to Sneddon; everything to give him away to Grell. Something in the way of movement; something in the specific cases that Mayfair volunteered to take. The intelligent eyes framed by a face unfamiliar only in its masculinity. 

Mayfair excelled beside Sneddon for several years, growing closer and closer to the man until one of their patients murmured something to Sneddon that needed no translation due to how immediately distant Sneddon became with his only junior.

And then, suddenly, things sped up. A flash of painted eyes, an accusation, a loud and angry argument that did not quite come to blows. Mayfair turning on one heel and darting away. Sneddon cursing but not following after immediately – taking time in the form of one day, two, of doing his job alone. And then he went to find _her_ , distaste clear in his gait as he strode from his department to find Mayfair.

The woman who opened the door to the house was Mayfair, pulled together in the subtle artifice of a very well created form – it almost took him aback. She was beautiful and angry and Sneddon let her shout for some time before he moved.

Taking her head in his hands as though it were a fragile thing, he huffed out a long, despairing breath before he kissed her. He held her there as her face split into ebullient bliss; held her there until their forms dripped and ran and fell away, until there stood no artifice between them, no sound, no space. And then he let her go.

A sharp hand gesture – an expression of considerable bitterness, words, something like _Get out_. Surprise, upset, betrayal across Mayfair; something lost. Three words from her mouth that made Sneddon snarl like an animal and make the aggressive, abortive hand gesture again.

Mayfair disappeared, transferred to another department, and Sneddon returned to his job – taking a more administrative role, often bypassing actual interactions with his patients. Several brief, angry affairs with nameless women in the department that ended in vicious argument. A variety of equally horrific cases, kept quiet and restrained; one reaper caught stealing scythes with the apparent intention to use them against his colleagues, another guilty of having turned on his partner in a rash moment of anger, a third recovering from having contracted a demon – which had then subsequently been killed – in a moment of self-destructive negligence. And then the first notice from medical about a corpse discovered – a young male reaper whose warp core had been cut out and replaced with that of a female. Creeping dread – but the corpse was not Mayfair.

A thorough investigation undertaken through the ranks of medical, culprits sent to Corrections for interrogation, not help. And eventually the dark haired woman brought before him for the crime of leading the troupe of medical staff who had defected, had tampered with the parameters of life; familiar and alien. Her eyes had not changed – and Mayfair smirked back at Sneddon from the door of her cell, rattling the bars, crooning her triumph at his retreating back. Because it wasn't a guise, wasn't a trick of her body or his eyes – she had successfully transitioned. Without access to the necessary technology to do so and without losing her ability to jump.

Almost a week of interrogations, harsh shouting, sly knowing silence from Mayfair until the day that she vanished, alongside one of Davies' juniors. One Caroline Haw.

An apology from Davies that concluded in an argument. _Trust_ , shouted again and again - _I trusted you_? No; _You trusted her_.

Haw recaptured, having made a fatal error in trusting a man whose face she thought she knew. A moment of brief, numb horror when Sneddon had first seen Grell Sutcliff and been faced with those same smiling, accusatory painted eyes, and the momentary distraction from his more important patient. A rabid, unfocused attempt to repair what he saw as a hundred years' damage in far too little time. And all the while that same nagging familiarity, the spectre of Mayfair haunting the corridors when Sutcliff had been on his mind.

On the other side of the table angry mockery from Haw; no crack in her armour, no way into her head. And then, as a last attempt to force her to talk, his hands on her body, low on her hips, his breath against her ear. A question? A statement? Either way it made her eyes widen in sudden horror, and she shook her head violently. The first emotive reaction. A sigh from Sneddon, a hand on her stomach, pressing, changing -

And pulling back abruptly when her body refused to yield.

A staring match. Fear in both faces. Giving way slowly to calculating interest in Sneddon, mute terror in the other. She shook her head again, again, again until Sneddon grabbed her and forced her to be still, put his hand to her forehead and then her cheek. Fingers on her eye, forcing the lids open so that he could peer close, morbid fascination for no obvious reason defiling his stolen face. And then he scrabbled at her neck, groping for a pulse, and drew back again. Three short words, more shaking of the head.

A check that the restraints held her secure. A thoughtfulness, tight-lipped, then a frown. A single nod. And then he left, walked straight and stiff-legged to the department next door and found a half-recognisable Davies, her hair and glasses different and a strangely innocent youthfulness about her face.

Sneddon gestured. Davies frowned, and they returned together to the white room with the blanching woman and Sneddon held back as Davies approached her, touched her cheek as he had, and then knelt to talk to her from a lower angle. A small nod of the head, a curious dispassion in the reaper's eyes. The movement of Haw from her cell to what was painfully obviously an operating theatre; the gathering of a large number of senior reapers.

They crowded the table, peering down at Haw for whatever seemed so alien, and to Grell's discomfort the woman began to cry, soft tears creeping down her face without noise. She knew what was about to happen.

Sneddon pushed her shirt up to her chest to reveal skin unbroken by any such normalities as lines or a navel, cut a shallow incision from one side to the other, and pulled back the skin to reveal thin white fluid and a smooth second skin, through which turgid wires could be seen.

Haw was an android.

The anguish in her face was obvious, and as Sneddon cut further she began to plead, and as Sneddon began to remove components of her piece by piece, no emotion on his face, she began to scream. For a moment Grell heard the scream, clear as it had been when they had sat in adjacent cells, heard it replay in her mind as he dug one hand into her false flesh and in one sudden movement wrenched a mess of metal spines from her and stared at it. An artificial warp core, give or take; very large and presumably fully functional.

Haw writhed and spasmed and screamed, her eyes tight shut and her mouth a chasm of agony as she fought to free herself from the table, attempting to yank her limbs loose or haul herself out through blind force alone. It did not give loose – but Sneddon was staring at the machine in his hands, not the being on the slab, and he shook his own head before turning away and placing it on the counter. He watched the android kick and sob and scream for some time after that, making no move to touch her, until it became evident that she would not quiet. Only then did he clip her wrists together again and drag her up, pull her from the table – and when she stumbled and made as though to collapse he caught her and hauled her up again, supporting her as one would a drunk. Davies watched from the side, dull-eyed, impassive – and turned her back, offering no help to Sneddon or his patient. 

Haw did not stop, so was left alone in her cell once more. Grell Sutcliff was spoken to, touched, the fear in her manner pathetic and out of place. When Haw stopped screaming, Sneddon visited her to find her sitting dead-eyed and motionless in the corner of the room. She didn't register his appearance. She didn't do anything at all.

Sneddon snapped his fingers in front of her eyes, once, twice; shook her. When she still failed to react he hit her, brutally, and the force of the blow made the empty body tip left and then collapse with almost fluid grace against the floor, eyes still wide but lungs finally stilled.

Even without sound, it was obvious that he swore.

Things seemed to get worse from then on. Upon Grell's release the supervisor Spears had begun hassling Sneddon through letters, far more emotionally involved than Sneddon had been led to expect. And Grell successfully completed the probation without falling to violence or any misdoing at all – he was forced to acknowledge this at the hearing and accept the release. But androids dogged his mind, uncertainty making him irate and driving people away until, up close, only a single secretary remained. Celia, apparently willing to put up with a world of bad temper. And then, eventually, the signs that heralded the end.

A few days of erratic behaviour from his secretary which climaxed with an unexpected and wholly unwanted kiss, and then an onset of headaches, dizziness and mood swings. Celia nowhere to be found, so unable to bear the brunt of the blame. Then she reappeared, smiling, talking gently, trustworthy against the fuzzy backdrop of wavering reality. Sneddon let her lead him somewhere, vision swimming, and found himself locked in one of his own cells, shut away in the dark.

The frames begin to fade in and out, snatches moments of coherency catching Sneddon between periods of vicious confusion. Celia visited, smiling still, sometimes with food. Celia had no heartbeat. Sneddon found himself unable to understand what that meant as his mind fell apart.

And then he awoke at his desk, clear-headed and refreshed, being prompted awake by the woman herself. _You fell asleep, sir_ , mouthed. _You must be exhausted, making so much preparation for the trial next week. Here, I brought you coffee._ A warm and welcoming smile.

Nearing the end of the record the frames began to corrode, although there was no obvious reason why – and then it abruptly cut off as Sneddon chided Ronald about the secretary, and Grell realised that it was destroying itself.

She pulled out of it quickly, severing it before the ruined end and storing it in her scythe. The corroding end continued to eat itself away until it disappeared in a small burst of light, and Grell frowned at the space for a time before grabbing the phone on the desk and dialling Special Affairs.

It took Davies ten minutes to arrive, which was ten minutes longer than Grell had the patience to forgive. Every second spent standing lax in this cramped room with another corpse made her more likely to be discovered; put her more on edge. He was too like U8801, after he had bled out in the park. He was too like Will, botched corpse shattered by her scythe. He was too still, the clear fluid spattered horribly over the desk, eyes still open and leering into space.

And Grell knew who had killed William, who had created U8801; who was responsible for _everything_.

When Davies did eventually burst into the room she was flustered, still dressed for the hearing, wringing her hands. “Oh, God – oh God, he was one too? Andreas was-?” Davies stared from the robot to Grell and back again, eyes wide. “How did you know? When did he-? Did you get his record?”

Grell handed the record over, and then said, “Haw was an android too.”

“Yes – look, help me with this; we need to get him back to the department before anyone finds out-”

Grell didn't wait for her to finish. She put her shoulder under the robot's front, supporting the weight, grabbed the hand and jumped directly to the holding room without Davies.

The lights in the holding room took a moment to register her presence, and in the fractional darkness Grell understood exactly what had been meant about keeping the androids locked up aiding peace of mind. She could make out their outlines, just, and half-fancied that their heads moved infinitesimally to watch her arrival. Then the lights clicked on, blinding her, and once her eyes had adjusted the androids were just as they had been when she'd last seen them.

She let Sneddon's body slide from her shoulder and hit the ground. It seemed almost to clatter, and she wondered if, had they been able to, the androids would have flinched at the sound. They weren't awake, weren't aware, but she wasn't convinced that their eyes needed batteries to see, nor that their wicker minds needed an electrical flow to learn. She wasn't convinced that they wouldn't remember every cruelty imparted upon them if they were to be awoken again.

The majority of them were of no interest to her. She let her eyes wander across the cells, began to walk – Sneddon's corpse wouldn't exactly disappear – until she found the one that merited her attention in full.

Haw's body sat as slack as it had in Sneddon's record; limbs loose and blank gaze as jaded as it had been in life. Her eyes were huge and more dead than anything Grell had ever seen, and this close she could see what had alarmed Sneddon so much about them – they failed to reflect light properly, the effect worsened by their absolute lack of motion. A noise behind her betrayed Davies' arrival.

“Why didn't you tell me?”

“I thought you knew,” Davies replied softly. “Everyone thought you must have known.”

Grell stared into Haw's deep, awful eyes, and didn't move when she felt Davies' hand on her shoulder. “Tell me about Mayfair.”

The woman startled at the name, dropping her hand, but made the correct deduction. “I don't know if I could tell you anything more than Andreas' memories could.”

“I don't care. Tell me anyway.”

“...Yes. Of course.” Distraction was eating away at her again, and Grell wondered how long she would have to put up with it for. “Well, she was – like you. Worked with Andreas for years before she came out; brilliant mind, one of the best in that department. They balanced each other out, until he found out that she was... well, what she was, and he was never the most tolerant, so...” her voice trailed off, one wispy last breath, and she held it for a moment before going on. “She transitioned, somehow, illegally – people died. We caught her, we lost her, she converted Haw somehow but I assumed she would just be in the same position by now – replaced – robotic-”

Grell let her hyperventilate for exactly thirty seconds before interjecting. “Mayfair did this. She was the one who gave me U8801. She's alive and well and manipulating this dispatch from the inside out – look at me! You knew her; how do we find her?”

“I don't know where she is now. She just... went; we haven't heard from her since she escaped.” Davies shook her head, eyes half closed, and then made an obvious effort to regain her composure before pointing weakly at the body of the robot. “...How did you recognise that he was an android?”

“Cold hands. Nothing more definite than that, nothing more damning than that – he had cold hands, but U8801 doesn't. They don't have to have that catch, and I'd be prepared to bet that now that it's in the open, they won't.” She met Davies' eyes – found them as worried as her own. “He believed himself alive, Helen. He didn't know. It isn't a case of the Dispatch being riddled with double agents, androids taking the places of their counterparts: the androids are the reapers, and we may yet be the androids. There's no way to tell.”

Davies shook her head, the motion almost autonomous. “God help us all.”


	7. Repurposing

Ronald could see the pale line across the android's throat, sealed close but irreparable. If he was honest, the man – creature – robot – unsettled him, more than a little.

They were seated together in the break room, Ronald leaning back with his elbows against the frame of his own chair and U8801 sitting stock still with his legs crossed on the seat of his, the result almost childlike. Ronald was trying to enjoy his coffee break without seeming rude, but the android was just... watching him. There was no malevolence in his gaze, by any means, but it was off-putting. Perhaps he hadn't learned how to blink yet.

“So, uh, you... enjoying it here?”

“I don't have the capacity to truly feel enjoyment.” Spoken entirely deadpan, so even had Ronald believed him capable of joking this was not the moment for that talent to be revealed. The robot tipped his head as though in consideration, and then asked, “Do you understand how I work?” 

The question seemed purposefully vague. “How'd'you mean?”

“I am of three pieces – the algorithm that dictates my abilities is what you would perhaps call the mind, what you see is the unit I inhabit, my body, and my... the soul that powers me functions in much the same way as yours. But it is not my soul. I am a parasitic entity.”

“I hope you aren't thinking about killing yourself again,” Ronald said, attempting a light tone. “The paperwork we had to go through after the last time was a monster load.”

U8801 shook his head. “I have a niche, here. I feel that I am in some way useful to your establishment, so I shall remain here until I run out of time. Grell told me that- that there is a fixed length to my soul. She did not tell me how long it is, and although I will not die when it ends I will become inactive again, and I doubt another reel would be sacrificed to run me again.”

“So you're with us until then. A reaper like the rest of us – I heard you've even moved into one of the council flats?” A strange thing for an automaton programmed to please Grell to do, but U8801 nodded. “Did you two fall out or something?”

“We had a... questionable encounter.” He gave Ronald a rather fugitive look, and then explained, “I was not built to function sexually. Whilst the externalities of my body mimic those of a man, I am not wired for much other than speech and motion – my purpose was to resemble something she held dear, not to subsidise her desires.”

“She kicked you out for _that_?”

“No. It was my own decision to leave. My presence was detrimental to her mourning process.”

This made Ronald smile. “So you do still want to keep her happy.”

“Don't you?”

“Aha, yeah.” The laughter wasn't supposed to be as nervous as it came out, and Ronald hoped that the android wasn't emotionally adept enough to recognise that. “Yeah, I do, but I've known her rather longer than you.” Long enough to know that she was acting erratically, long enough to worry – and yet not long enough to know how to help her. Ronald hadn't felt genuine concern for some years now – not the first time that he had met U8801, not quite when he'd realised what was wrong with Spears; not until Grell had stumbled back broken had he really found any emotions to invest – and it wasn't an enjoyable feeling. He fumbled for some way of changing the topic. “You've, uh – you've stopped wearing glasses.”

Clearly the hesitation hadn't been noticed. “I didn't need them. And I feel the need now to separate myself from his memory – primarily that comes through appearance, and secondarily name. I do not have a given name yet.” U8801 was looking at Ronald now with a flat stare that was probably supposed to be questioning, so Ronald scrabbled for a suitable title.

“How about, like, Robert? Because you're a ro-”

“I was thinking Yates,” U8801 interrupted. “Due to my serial number: U double ei-”

“Man, you don't have to spell it out for me!” Ronald laughed, the bizarreness of the situation getting to him. “That'd make your first name... Owen, right? U8801 – Yates, Owen. Owen Yates, named like the next guy. Yeah?”

“...Yeah,” the android mimicked, after a moment. “Yeah, I believe that it would.” He settled minutely, as though having been anticipating some tension, and Ronald found him suddenly more affable now that he had a name so much closer to home.

“Y'know, for a robot you seem like a pretty ordinary bloke.”

“I am glad to seem that way.” The android smiled, the look not so disconcerting now that he was distinct from William, and then added, “And I must say that, for a dead man walking, you are not so strange yourself.”

* * *

The android – and she was an android, she knew; her multitudinous names no longer mattered – peered in at the shell that had once housed her and wondered if she should feel pity. There was something about the mad blind eyes, the grasping, clawing inability to sense anything of the world around it, but... No. The creature before her was pathetic, not pitiable.

She reached out, touched its matted head, and admired the way it failed to react. It had no idea that she was there. Then again, neither did anyone else.

She inhaled, exhaled, once, mechanically. It was the only flaw that she had been created with; she did not need to eat, to sleep, to contain emotion or to be seen. She could not feel temperature or pain; retained no sense of smell. The only weapon in existence with the power to do her harm would be a scythe – and she would not allow such a thing to enter her domain. It would be unthinkable.

The others would awaken soon. A dull excitement ruminated within her for the moment, in spite of her general desire to avoid emotion; she had seen the bodies, all laid out, just like herself. She could remember the first stirrings of consciousness; the first strands of dreams. She could remember convulsing awake, hands clawing at her own perfect skin, flinching into sudden consciousness as her systems had awoken and hauled her from the brink of destruction into true life. Testament to her design there was almost no noticeable lag time before her body had settled into full working order, and nothing obvious to suggest that she was anything other than the reaper that she had been.

They would be perfect.

Some of them would not wake. She had known that from the beginning – the method of transfer was far too risky, the emotional strain of expecting so horrible a death leading to far too many self injuries. More fool them. Those would be the souls that would fracture, lost into nothingness instead of such glorious rebirth. Perhaps they would become ghosts, or demons, or shadows in the night. Those she could pity; she understood the irony of trying to escape only to damn themselves, even as every one of them had before.

Mayfair smiled, wide, and stepped away from the zombie. It had been so beautiful, once; such a gorgeous body. She had been so pleased with it. And now she stood a synthetic deity before it – had outgrown it and cast it aside, with full success. There was no regret to be had, no facet of yearning for how she had been. It was just another corpse, all imperfection negated, and for the first time in her life she stood exactly as she should be.

She was complete.


End file.
